Our travel plans for Christmas had been Harbin ice festival but unfortunately these were cancelled due to covid cases popping up around north China and in Shanghai. The numbers are very low by world wide standards, just a handful but China has a zero target and any cases that pop up mean stricter travel rules.

Travel rules have already increased as the country prepares for the Winter Olympics so we were fully prepared for a Christmas in Shanghai however… the day I broke up for the holidays Shanghai became a Green Zone. This means we can travel to other green zones with less restrictions. One such green zone is the beach! So we decided to gamble it and booked flights and a villa in Sanya for 4 days.

I won’t go into details but recently health concerns have meant I need to manage my stress levels… and what better place than beach. That is if getting through the travel procedures is not to stressful 🤦‍♀️

Flight day… Boxing Day 2021! After a quick trip to the hospital to get a safe to fly note for Boy Blue, it was time for o pack. (He decided it was a good idea to wrestle on a trampoline on Xmas eve and get a stitch in the back of the head. He is totally fine!)

Main packing items… swim wear, wetsuits, snorkels, shorts and sunglasses! Main planned activities. Chill!

We arrived the airport in plenty of time and managed to checkin and do all the extra covid travel forms with plenty of time. The covid test we had done the day before had been negative but we’re not required… well at least they didn’t ask us for them. However as everything is linked to your phone here it is quite possible that they could see them when we handed over our phones for the check in process. They also generated our Sanya health codes. Which were green so fingers crossed no extra tests on arrival.

The flight itself was although rather turbulent straight forward. Simple snacks and were served and masks were required for the whole flight. I managed to read 4 chapters of a book! The joys of having finished my masters recently, I can can now read for pleasure!

A bumpy landing, it was soon time to find out the arrival procedures. Coats packed into our bags we joined the first que. Actually it was simple enough… slight confusion over whether the kids had qr codes, so a little backwards and forwarding between two ques but soon enough we were on our way in a taxi to the resort. Eager for some food and a comfortable room!